Once Human

I saw a new game keeping a consistent spot in Steam's top 5 most played games, peaking at over 200k players. Surprisingly, the average player numbers were actually increasing during the first two weeks, making me really interested in what this game was. It's called Once Human, and it's a free-to-play survival MMO. While I've never liked the idea of survival games, there have also never been any free ones (that were big enough), and thus nothing with a low enough barrier of entry for me to actually play one. Being free, coupled with boasting to have up to 8000 players per server, and me loving the idea of MMOs, pushed me over the edge to give this game a try.

Once Human is a huge mashup of different ideas from a lot of different games. It has the base of a themepark MMO, survival game elements with base building anywhere in the world and a thirst and hunger system, but also aspects of the recent hit Palworld, with collection of "Deviations", who can automate certain tasks around your base. Throw in third-person shooter gameplay, apocalypse and horror aesthetics, some gacha mechanics for unlocking weapons and armor, and PvP if you're so inclined, and that's Once Human. It doesn't really do anything original, and I'm usually very skeptical of a game focusing on so many avenues of gameplay, but Once Human manages to blend them surprisingly well. Still, considering that I don't like any of the individual pieces the game is made of, it doesn't bode well for my final opinion of the game.

Above all, I feel this game is structured like a themepark MMO. This means that the majority of gameplay is running fetch and kill quests for NPCs, leading you from one region to another. You do this for about 60 hours until you complete everything and near max level, allowing you to gear up with the most powerful equipment and begin the end-game. Here you will either repeat dungeons or open-world events (PvP or PvE), some of which include defending your base from enemies or other players. The goal of all of it being to unlock better equipment or attachments to that equipment, the latter of which has random "rolls", meaning it's near impossible to get anything completely perfect.

I can't tell you how exactly the end-game plays out, as I got burnt out on the rather mundane grind about 30 hours in. I don't think there was a limit to how much you could run dungeons or open-world events, though some rewards did have weekly limits, most notably the currency used for the gacha system. Very surprisingly, there is no pay-to-win in the game at all, and you actually can't buy more currency for more gacha pulls. You do have a battle pass and flat out purchases, but that's all cosmetics, skins, and non-functional house accessories. Huge respect for a game releasing like that, and I hope it stays that way.
The most suspicious aspect was that the game is divided into 6-week-long seasons, after which all progress except the main story and unlocked blueprints (the gacha) is wiped. I don't know how people would feel about re-doing everything, especially since 6 weeks is not enough time for them to really create a fresh experience, so I imagine the game will take a big dip in popularity if they go through with it. It will probably take a big dip regardless, as there doesn't seem to be an enjoyable core loop, and players will start to run out of content in the coming days and weeks.

To conclude, despite a good free-to-play model, I feel I got the worst aspects of an MMO, with the other players running around the world not contributing to my experience, and all the gameplay being running from place to place, with killing a few enemies inbetween. (Not only did the servers not realistically reach near 8000 players, but they were further scattered throughout different instances on the server, making for a low population density.) The survival gameplay was about as run-of-the-mill as it can be, to my knowledge, and there was nothing else amazing about the game either. I suppose it's a decent enough time killer if you just want more of games you've already experienced, but there's nothing here for people not fans of the listed genres. I quit after realizing it's probably not getting any better after reaching end-game, not to mention knowing my progress will get mostly wiped anyways. I probably wouldn't recommend it unless you just need a basic survival MMO in your life to grind the hours away.